Should Jamestown be accepted into the NSIC?

[zimmy21]

Men's soccer isn't a NSIC-sponsored sport, so frankly I don't care. I wouldn't care if they were 6-0 either. It's irrelevant to the NSIC.
Women's soccer has a -10 goal differential in 6 NSIC contests. Not good, but not the worst in the NSIC (MSUM -14, UMC -10).

This is Year 1. Of course there will be growing pains to the new level. In the whole year-plus of buildup to the games starting, people talked about the Jimmies as if their level of competitiveness would be lower than UMC. We're talking about where UMM was before they dropped down or where UMC was probably 10-20 years ago.....if you think the current Golden Eagles don't belong in Division II, do you even remember what that institution once was? It was far uglier.

The Jimmies are in the basement currently, I'm aware. USF volleyball started its time in the NSIC winning 1 of its first 10 matches. No one accused them of not being worthy of having NSIC membership, did they? People understood that adjusting to a new level is a process and takes time.

Someone is feeling feisty today...Time will tell on how Jamestown's programs finish this year, but they still don't belong here and should be thanking their lucky stars that they have a place to play.


Year 1 nothing...USF came in the 2012-13 school year and competed well. Finished 6th in All-Sports Standings, but finished in the top quarter of the standings in 9 of their 16 sports

Baseball - 32-28 (25-15) T3rd in NSIC
Men's Basketball - 12-15 (8-14) 11th in NSIC
Women's Basketball - 12-15 (9-13) T10th in NSIC
Men's Cross Country - 3rd in NSIC
Women's Cross Country - 6th in NSIC
Men's Golf - T2nd Fall tourney, 3rd Spring Tourney
Women's Golf - 4th Fall tourney, 4th Spring tourney
Football - 9-2 (5-2) T3rd in NSIC
Men's Indoor T&F - 4th in NSIC
Women's Indoor T&F - 3rd in NSIC
Men's Outdoor T&F - 4th in NSIC
Women's Outdoor T&F - 4th in NSIC
Soccer - 0-17-1 (0-14-1) 16th in NSIC
Softball - 15-27 (10-18) 13th in NSIC
Tennis - 7-10 (6-6) 8th in NSIC
Volleyball - 14-16 (5-15) 13th in NSIC

[Stanger86]

Jamestown D2 record as of 10/9
Men's Soccer 0-6, 0-4 in-region
Women's Soccer 1-7, 1-6 in-region
Women's Volleyball 6-8, 1-6 in-region
Football 1-4, 1-4 in-region

8-19 in D2, 3-20 in-region

Men's soccer isn't a NSIC-sponsored sport, so frankly I don't care. I wouldn't care if they were 6-0 either. It's irrelevant to the NSIC.
Women's soccer has a -10 goal differential in 6 NSIC contests. Not good, but not the worst in the NSIC (MSUM -14, UMC -10).

This is Year 1. Of course there will be growing pains to the new level. In the whole year-plus of buildup to the games starting, people talked about the Jimmies as if their level of competitiveness would be lower than UMC. We're talking about where UMM was before they dropped down or where UMC was probably 10-20 years ago.....if you think the current Golden Eagles don't belong in Division II, do you even remember what that institution once was? It was far uglier.

The Jimmies are in the basement currently, I'm aware. USF volleyball started its time in the NSIC winning 1 of its first 10 matches. No one accused them of not being worthy of having NSIC membership, did they? People understood that adjusting to a new level is a process and takes time.

[Millsy]

Ahh heck - here's one more for fun.

The Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association was a varsity hockey conference in NCAA DIII whose member institutions were barred from playing for the NCAA DIII championship until 2009 (they folded in 2013).

The reason was because one of their members - the University of Minnesota-Crookston, was a DII school. UMC was allowed to operate a DIII hockey program. In fact, the only reason Crookston dropped NCAA hockey was because the conference decided they wanted an autobid to the NCAA tournament - which meant UMC had to go. They didn't have another home for the program, so they folded it.

That's strange enough - but around that time UMC had also committed to help fund the new hockey arena in Crookston that they'd planned to use, but the team folded right before construction. UMC still made their commitment to the city, but never fielded a varsity team on the ice.

When BSU was D-II in hockey, they played in the D-III NCHA. BSU had to play by the D-III rules, i.e., no scholarships for hockey. Also, if they won the conference tournament, the tournament runner up would represent the NCHA in the D-III tournament. IIRC, the last couple of years, BSU was not allowed to play in the NCHA Conference Tournament.

And at one time, there was one hockey player who was also a football player. Rumor is he caused a little bit of a ruckus with the NCHA when he was given some athletic scholarship money to play football, a D-II sport. He was a pretty good D-end and a pretty good hockey player. This was back in the early to mid 90s, so before the UMC/MCHA decisions.

[SW_Mustang]

Ahh heck - here's one more for fun.

The Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association was a varsity hockey conference in NCAA DIII whose member institutions were barred from playing for the NCAA DIII championship until 2009 (they folded in 2013).

The reason was because one of their members - the University of Minnesota-Crookston, was a DII school. UMC was allowed to operate a DIII hockey program. In fact, the only reason Crookston dropped NCAA hockey was because the conference decided they wanted an autobid to the NCAA tournament - which meant UMC had to go. They didn't have another home for the program, so they folded it.

That's strange enough - but around that time UMC had also committed to help fund the new hockey arena in Crookston that they'd planned to use, but the team folded right before construction. UMC still made their commitment to the city, but never fielded a varsity team on the ice.

[SW_Mustang]

Great recap on the differences/nuances, SW Mustang. Basically at the club level, it seems like the regulations and oversight tend to be a little lax. Schools have a lot of latitude on what they can do.

Probably a bad example, but kind of like the difference between NAIA and NCAA classification for other sports.

I could go down a whole rabbit hole here - but people would be surprised at how many things we think of as rules are either just semantics or matters of influence. I could also make the argument that there aren't any regulations on college sports beyond applicable state and local laws. Associations like the NCAA set rules that their members have to follow to maintain membership, but the NCAA has no authority over college sports itself. Oak HIlls can't be sanctioned if they were to (hypothetically, and not accusatory) violate NCAA regulations - because NCAA regulations don't apply to college sports at Oak Hills.

Anyway - an example would be the NWBA. There are two varsity members, SMSU and UW-Whitewater. The rest are club. Technically, when SMSU beats up on the University of Alabama, we're not actually playing the University of Alabama - we're playing a group of University of Alabama students that have been given permission to use the name and likeness of the Crimson Tide by the University.

Here's how weird this all gets:

-The NCAA does not sponsor D-II hockey. The Northeast-10 is a conference in NCAA D-II. The NE10 sponsors varsity collegiate hockey that is independent of the NCAA.
-The NAIA does not sponsor hockey at all. The WHAC is a conference in the NAIA. The WHAC sponsors varsity collegiate hockey under ACHA D-I.
-The ACHA is not the only club hockey association. There is also College Hockey South. The women's side competed in the AAU until recently, I believe.
-Lake Superior College in Duluth had a club hockey team at one time that played in a local beer league.

And my note about the "Fighting Mondales" - that's an intramural group that breaks away to play other intramural groups, so technically - it's neither "club" nor "varsity" despite the fact that they compete in intercollegiate hockey. Neato! My head hurts :)

[Millsy]

Great recap on the differences/nuances, SW Mustang. Basically at the club level, it seems like the regulations and oversight tend to be a little lax. Schools have a lot of latitude on what they can do.

Probably a bad example, but kind of like the difference between NAIA and NCAA classification for other sports.

[SW_Mustang]

Depends. When you look at some of the D-I teams, especially the big schools, they get support from the schools, almost treating it as a NCAA Varsity sport, awarding scholarships and the like. We billeted for a few years for our local NA3HL team, and a couple of our billets visited Iowa State. They had a strong program with a strong financial backing. I have heard of programs like Oklahoma, Arizona, UNLV, etc., travel by plane to some of their contests.

When you start getting into the lower D-1, and especially the D-2 and D-3 teams, it is more like a pay to play situation. They may get a little help from the school and may get to use school transportation. Otherwise, it is basically playing for the love of the game.

UNLV is an interesting one. A big part of their funding comes from the Englestad Foundation, or at least it did - I know they had a spat with the university itself and threatened to pull their donations, but I don't know if they did from the hockey team.

I read an article after they beat Denver last year that gave a figure of an $800,000 budget or something like that - however I ended up talking to their graphic designer and he said that was nowhere near accurate.

D3 tends to be purely student run, but some universities do start to get involved at the D2 level because they can use it as an enrollment booster. That's what SMSU did.

Some of those teams end up with good sized followings because there might not be much else for hockey in the area too. New Mexico for example has an NAHL/3HL franchise, but they have no other hockey above the high school level besides UNM.

[SW_Mustang]

Couple more while I thought of them -

The University of Michigan came under fire for price gouging the women's club team for ice time at Yost Arena in the last few years. Notable because there are no NCAA teams in the state of Michigan. Goes to show what the relationship between an ACHA team and the university can be like.

The University of Minnesota Law School operates their own hockey team known as the "Fighting Mondales" that are intramural - however they also play in a tournament every year against the law schools of Mitchell-Hamline and North Dakota for the Golden Gavel trophy.

[SW_Mustang]

Was not aware that so many club programs existed. Do they receive any support from schools and are they required to be students.

It's complicated. Here's the insanely long, boring, technical answer.

A varsity sport is an organization that is owned and operated by a university. They provide the funding, coaches, facilities, etc., they collect the revenues - all that stuff.

A club is a student-run organization that is seperate from the university, but is granted official recognition by the university. University involvement varies but generally speaking they provide a stipend and faculty advisor, as well as guidelines to maintain that recognition. This goes for the accounting club, and the club baseball team. So long as a club follows the rules, the university is usually pretty hands off.

This is where it gets confusing. The term club hockey is used to refer to any hockey program that is not a member of the NCAA (or NE-10 conference). The biggest association these teams belong too is the ACHA - American Club Hockey Association. The ACHA was founded to oversee club hockey and provide a playoff structure. Most of these teams are just that- student clubs, but not all of them.

Somewhere along the line - schools figured out they could operate a varsity program under the ACHA. Technically - Minot State's ACHA 1 program is a varsity sport. It is owned, operated, and funded by the university and as such falls under Title 9. However it comes as at a greatly reduced cost as an NCAA team would. Despite not being a "club hockey" program by definition, it's called that for the sake of simplicity.

The flipside is - some schools like UNLV figured out they could have a hockey program comparable to the NCAA organized as a student club that is entirely privately funded and not subject to Title 9. UNLV's budget dwarfs Minot State's, the team is probably as good as most average NCAA programs - and the university spends very little on it.

Crookston is the college hockey Twiglight Zone where nothing makes sense and never has but they do it anyway. UMC is a club team by definition as it's set up to be that way. However, UMC's coach is on the university payroll as the "Club Hockey Head Coach" and the team falls under the jurisdiction of the athletic department. I think what they did was create a faculty position whose only job responsibility is to be an advisor to the student club that the university itself set up and manages. Oofta!

There's an insanely long answer nobody wanted.

[debergfan]

Jamestown D2 record as of 10/9
Men's Soccer 0-6, 0-4 in-region
Women's Soccer 1-7, 1-6 in-region
Women's Volleyball 6-8, 1-6 in-region
Football 1-4, 1-4 in-region

8-19 in D2, 3-20 in-region

[zimmy21]

Depends. When you look at some of the D-I teams, especially the big schools, they get support from the schools, almost treating it as a NCAA Varsity sport, awarding scholarships and the like. We billeted for a few years for our local NA3HL team, and a couple of our billets visited Iowa State. They had a strong program with a strong financial backing. I have heard of programs like Oklahoma, Arizona, UNLV, etc., travel by plane to some of their contests.

When you start getting into the lower D-1, and especially the D-2 and D-3 teams, it is more like a pay to play situation. They may get a little help from the school and may get to use school transportation. Otherwise, it is basically playing for the love of the game.

My cousins kid plays on Embry-Riddle's D2 squad. Surprised the hell out of me.

[Millsy]

Was not aware that so many club programs existed. Do they receive any support from schools and are they required to be students.

Depends. When you look at some of the D-I teams, especially the big schools, they get support from the schools, almost treating it as a NCAA Varsity sport, awarding scholarships and the like. We billeted for a few years for our local NA3HL team, and a couple of our billets visited Iowa State. They had a strong program with a strong financial backing. I have heard of programs like Oklahoma, Arizona, UNLV, etc., travel by plane to some of their contests.

When you start getting into the lower D-1, and especially the D-2 and D-3 teams, it is more like a pay to play situation. They may get a little help from the school and may get to use school transportation. Otherwise, it is basically playing for the love of the game.

[Tundra_Man]

Box Elder bugs are present around Box Elder Trees a member of the maple family. The ugly black and orange bugs eat the seeds of the tree.They try to enter homes when it's gets cold. We rented a house while in college, which had a box elder tree beside the driveway. Bugs were a nuisance coming in home.

"If being outdoors is so great, why do all the bugs want to get into my house?" - Jim Gaffigan

[vikingfaithful]

The Jimmies Men's Club Hockey Team checks in at #6 in the opening D-1 Club National Poll with a 4-0 record on the year.

Minot State (0-0) checks in at #3, while UMary is at #14 with a 4-2 record.

Looks like D-2 Club has Moorhead, Bemidji, Augustana, Jamestown, St. Cloud, Crookston, Duluth and Mankato. No opening season poll, yet.

I didn't see any NSIC schools at the D-3 Club Level.

Was not aware that so many club programs existed. Do they receive any support from schools and are they required to be students.

[vikingfaithful]

Passed through a town in the Marshall area a few weeks ago that named the towns festival Box Elder Bug days...one of the least appealing names I've ever come across.

I saw enough of those during my high school era, so that is gonna be a hard pass for me.

Box Elder bugs are present around Box Elder Trees a member of the maple family. The ugly black and orange bugs eat the seeds of the tree.They try to enter homes when it's gets cold. We rented a house while in college, which had a box elder tree beside the driveway. Bugs were a nuisance coming in home.